Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I must have got lost out there.I was expecting to go about 33-34 minutes based results over the last year and hoping for a little bit faster as I’m setting PRs in the pool right now.In past races I always seemed to go out a little too fast and end up at a pace I know I can’t hold the entire swim only to have to slow down.I figured this time I would just go out at a comfortable pace and try to hold that for the entire swim to see what happened.

Well it was the most comfortable swim I ever had, but based on my time it was a bit too comfortable though.I just focused on swimming with good form and found a set of feet that seemed to be going straight. When we hit about half way I looked at my watch and it was already 19 minutes, opps.On the way back I went around feet I was drafting behind and swam a bit harder but thanks to the sun directly in front of us I was having trouble sighting and swimming straight into people from earlier waves. The good news was I came out of the water well rested and ready for the bike…. but I was 26th in my age group after the swim.

Bike – 2:09:57 – 25.86 mph

Within about a mile of transition I could tell it was going to be a good day on the bike.My legs felt great, I was holding back and still above my target watts.It was tough, but I managed to hold back and stay right at my target watts the entire race.The best part was once we hit about mile 35 we had a tailwind and most people seemed to slow down, I stayed exactly at my watts and averaged 28.9 mph for 31 minutes, making up a ton of ground.This was by far my best ride ever in a race.I took in all of my nutrition exactly as planned, and my average power was exactly what I had in my race plan, thanks to a VI of 1.01!

The hardest part of the ride was getting passed.Local fast guys, Adam Zucco and Scott Iott both blew by me early in the ride.Since my legs felt so good I really wanted to try and hang with them.I’m glad I stuck with my plan as they both had an awesome day and I may have been in for a very tough run if I would have tried to go with them.

The great ride was able to move me up to 4th in AG by T2.

Run – 1:25:16 – 6:30 min/mile

All that I read and heard about this race was fast bike but hot and hilly run.That combined with a forecast of 88, high humidity and an 8:50 AM start time got in my head and I was worried about the run.For those reasons I forced myself to really hold back in the first few miles and focus on getting nutrition in.My plan was to hold 6:30 pace for the first half and then pick it up if I could.Well, even though it didn’t feel all that hot or humid, my legs didn’t have any kick and I couldn’t speed up.I did manage to run almost an exactly even split though and hold a 6:30 average pace.I’m a little disappointed as I went a full 5 minutes faster in Oceanside.I ended up passing 2 people in my AG and came in second.

Summary – 4:13:48 – 2nd Ag – 5th Amateur – 26th Overall

Overall, I had a good day and am pleased with my race.I do think I could have done a little better on the run but it was good for me to prove I can stick to my plan exactly as I will need to do that at Ironman Wisconsin.I also now feel I really have my 70.3 distance nutrition dialed in and have a pretty good idea on how I can and should pace myself.

Thank you to everyone that is following me and of course, Theresa, Abigail, Jake from Zoot and Dr. Phil from PhysFarm.